Another military base shooting: 'End Clinton-era military base gun ban'

It's difficult to imagine American military bases as "gun free zones" but citizens of the U.S. discovered that during the 2009 when a shooting at Fort Hood in Texas left 13 people dead. The Washington Times printed an editorial at the time urging a change in the policy that leaves soldiers unarmed on base:

Last week’s slaughter at Fort Hood Army base in Texas was no different - except that one man bears responsibility for the ugly reality that the men and women charged with defending America were deliberately left defenseless when a terrorist opened fire.

Among President Clinton’s first acts upon taking office in 1993 was to disarm U.S. soldiers on military bases. In March 1993, the Army imposed regulations forbidding military personnel from carrying their personal firearms and making it almost impossible for commanders to issue firearms to soldiers in the U.S. for personal protection. For the most part, only military police regularly carry firearms on base, and their presence is stretched thin by high demand for MPs in war zones.

Because of Mr. Clinton, terrorists would face more return fire if they attacked a Texas Wal-Mart than the gunman faced at Fort Hood, home of the heavily armed and feared 1st Cavalry Division. That’s why a civilian policewoman from off base was the one whose marksmanship ended Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan’s rampage.

Will the latest shooting accelerate the call for change?

Forbes, Wittman, Rigell: 'Sequester impact on military a disgrace'

By Reps. Randy Forbes, Rob Wittman, and Scott Rigell
The Daily Press

If you were told that your son or daughter was going to fly on an airplane that had only 70 percent of its required maintenance, or whose pilot had trained for less hours than optimally required to maintain proficiency, would you allow him or her to get on the plane? Of course not. Yet thanks to sequestration, the U.S. military is facing a situation where our sons and daughters are being asked to do more with less training, less maintenance, and less modern platforms. Today, the military is experiencing the greatest readiness crisis since the Vietnam War. Should the president and Congress fail to find a solution to our nation's budget woes, readiness will likely degrade even further. Forced to find immediate savings, the services have curtailed training and deferred maintenance in ways that threaten to damage our national security for decades.

Sequestration's roughly $500 billion in defense cuts over the next decade have come on top of the administration's already substantial reductions to national defense spending. Accordingly, the services have chosen to absorb the majority of these cuts by reducing their near-term readiness, which generally means less training for the men and women wearing our nation's uniform.

For Army and Marine units, other than those scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan, this means substantially less time firing live ammunition and fewer opportunities to train with the vehicles they may eventually take into combat.

Read the rest of this article here.

Vet from Moran town hall appears on Fox & Friends

Thursday night Virginia Democratic Rep. Jim Moran (8th Congressional District) was conducting  a town hall meeting when he was asked a question by a disabled military veteran. Moran's disrespect and rudeness in responding to the vet were captured on videotape and spread by Rush Limbaugh, Hot Air, Weekly Standard, and Fox News.


This morning the military vet was a guest on Fox & Friends as he talked with anchor Steve Doocy about the incident. Wayne Tunick, a 27-year U.S. Navy veteran, attended the town hall to ask why Congress was on the verge of a shutdown that would stop paychecks to military men and women including active troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also questioned why Moran was conducting a town hall instead of being in DC working on a resolution to the budget crisis.


When Moran commented that Tunick was making "caustic" remarks,  Tunick took exception and told the Congressman so. That resulted in Moran telling the veteran to be quiet and sit down.


Another town hall attendee taped the entire episode and it quickly went viral on Friday. I wrote about it at the Washington Examiner as well as others who called attention to the exchange.


Moran's office responded to the incident by saying there were people waiting in line waiting and they couldn't disrupt those wanting to ask questions. When asked by Doocy about that, Tunick said there were not a number of people in line behind him ... there was one person.


His motivation, he said, was the ultimate leadership lesson he learned from the military: number one is you always take care of your troops. The troops, he told Doocy, did not need to worry about a government shutdown cutting off their paychecks with their spouses wondering whether they would be able to pay the bills.

With a late-night deal struck with Congress at the eleventh hour Friday, there will be no government shutdown.

Isophorone: "Military being disenfranchised in Fairfax County"

Ron over at Isophorone has a post up about military ballots being rejected by the registrar in Fairfax County.

This should cause the wrath of the country to come down on Fairfax County ... these are our men and women in uniform. They of all people should be allowed to vote in this presidential election.

Let's hope they get it straightened out before November 4th.

Remember our heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan....

Remember our American heroes in Iraq and Afghanistan ...
the men and women in uniform who fight to keep us free.

American flag in honor of SSgt. Herb Harman, Churchville, VA.

Thank you for your service. May God bless....

Welcome home, Stonewall Brigade, Staunton, VA.
March 2008.

President Bush with American troops.

President Bush with the troops.

Vietnam Wall....

May we never forget.

"For God & Country: Faith on the Battlefield"

Tune in tonight, May 25, at 8:00 PM on WAZT-TV and see “For God and Country: Faith on the Battlefield.” SWAC's own SSgt. Herb Harman will be featured.

Dean Welty with the Valley Family Forum writes...

Monday is Memorial Day, which has been observed nationally since 1868, right after the Civil War. It is an opportunity to honor the more than one million men and women in the Armed Forces who have given their lives for the freedoms we enjoy today. It is a sobering reminder that “Freedom is never free.”

Our guests will be Lt. Col. Jeff White and Staff Sergeant Herb Harman. They both take their faith and their call to arms seriously, soldiers who stand ready to defend our freedoms. And as a good friend regularly reminds me, “For those who have fought for it, freedom has a flavor the protected will never know.”

We will ask them what “God and Country” mean to them. Under what conditions is war justified? What does the Bible teach about war? Who and what are worth fighting, and dying, for? And what in their faith compels them to leave their families for the battlefield, and then sustains them on the field?

We will also be asking their wives, Jocelyn White and Jan Harman, about their concerns for their families when their husbands go to war. Mrs. White was once an Army officer herself, so we will ask how that compares to being a full time homemaker and home-school teacher to her three children. Her answer will surprise you!

God calls all of us to obedience in different ways, and we can be deeply grateful for those who continue to put themselves in harm’s way, “Brave men who stand ready to do acts of violence so we can sleep safe in our beds.” Memorial Day is a time to reflect, to be grateful to all our men and women who stand in the gap for us, and to pray for peace in America and around the world.

Jan told me the wives didn't talk much because the husbands has so much to tell ... it sounds like an interesting program ... just what you need to head into the Memorial Day weekend.